Everyone has the right to choose what they believe in, and join any group that takes their fancy, however main stream or 'barmy' their beliefs might be.

At the same time NO group has the right to use deception and psychological coercion to indoctrinate people against their will, and turn them into virtual slaves serving the cult. It matters not whether the Mind Control Techniques used are very powerful and quick to take effect, or whether they are more subtle and work over time.

Every parent who has children at St. James Independent Schools, or who is planning to send their children there should be made fully aware of the
alleged "criminal assaults" of the past, as well as the 'Cult behind the Front'

Hmmm, seems the party line has been crossed (at least your attention to flogging Justice! has been diverted)

ADG you have never been slow to make sweeping insulting comments -- eg all country people are ignorant hicks (go look at your past posts ) etc and your smug little asides about someone needing their education expanded by watching an obscure Sean Connery film (that is probably quite good in it's own right but gives you no licence to be sarcastically dismissive of anyone else ) Looking on but taking no actual part on something is the meaning of "voyueristic" -- I am doing something about it (and other destructive quasi religious cults having nothing to do with this site )

I pity you if you think it is about a measly couple of hundred dollars -- I think you do know it is not but cannot resist being insulting -- I have gone in to bat for a number of women who lost their husbands as a result of misleading and deceptive conduct by some very powerful government officials (CASA) and police assisting them -- also the exposure of the "National Safety Council" that proved to have been a multimillion dollar scam and cost several people who acted to bring that to light their lives.

You would not have any experience of the pattern of deceit cover up and "brotherhood" self defence that is common to nearly all 'shady' organizations and would thus have no 'stomach' perhaps for facing people who do wrong and get official protection . You do come across as a bored housewife just chipping in with a 'witty , chatty little asides' as though you took this to be a jolly little laugh . Your need to have someone else back you up as I recall when you wanted to defend the politically correct line on Aboriginal 'dispossession' was telling in itself.

I bet you have never had anything to do with actual flesh and blood aboriginals, never worked with any or lived within hundreds of miles of them -- 'handwringing' is just as useless an activity on their behalf but makes the white apologists in their suburban cozyness feel good .
Your Henry reynolds has just been exposed to have invented the very term "Terra Nullius" in relation to the colonization of Australia -- a very real deception that muddied the waters and undermined Aboriginal support -- as Richard Dawkins terms the religious claim to total and absolute knowledge of truth (and burnt people alive to defend it ) "beautiful lies" but lies nonetheless.

If you had of read anything I have posted I DID go to consumer affairs and I am still fighting to have this avenue made effective (just come back from another council meeting tonight also -- not just sucking on a Tim Tam in my suburban comfort zone )

Get at least some of your facts right . I have over 40 years of PERSONAL experience with what cults like this do to family life and how they can take over your direct family members (not remote 'relos' ) and ruin their lives -- my own mother was brain washed by the Jehovah Witnesses and convinced she would not die-- ever -- because she was born during the first world war and they were told that the 'end of things' would happen before the last of that generation had died. Cruel and heartless manipulation and , like the speaking in tongues, con artists and other fringe religious cults that I have helped friends get out of so very much like the SES/SOP.

More could be said in regard to your diatribe but it would be wasted on you .

If the st James schools are still making "grave mistakes" with children and you have suffered so much why in God's name would you NOTwant to put an end to this ?????

I accept the fact of your being abused -- "comparing scars" and "relating war stories" are euphonisms for talking about REAL injuries incurred and REAL harrowing experiences --- my point is that the point has been reached where YOU ARE BELIEVED --- ACCEPT THAT and try to use the communal support and vindication for a positive outcome -- otherwise it is a bit like the 'life of Brian ' scene that I referred to.

Are you sure that you do not still harbour fears and reticence to seek resolution (for others as well who might still be suffering - as I believe is the case from evidence given in PM's and elsewise ) rather than just personal "reconciliation" with your memories ?
The other meaning of 'reconcile' is to come to accept that you cannot change a bad situation and just give in to it - that is give up fighting or struggling just accept your fate -- you are beaten and powerless.

As in "reconciled to his fate" -- the dictionary says "make acquiescent or contentedly submissive" -- much the same thing.

"Shout" seemed to have some fire in the belly and to have resolved to do something to put an end to the whole mess -- Is he/she alone ?
Should you walk away and leave others to fall into the same trap?

Need some real answers to see if there is any point in trying to help you with your problem (posting on this forum does not help me to take care of them here )

That said i am glad that it has focussed us on the tolerance aspect. We have all been through some angry stages in the reliving and re-examination of this experience. If indeed you actually went through it the first time.

And if you didn't actually go through the school you might excuse the paranoia and distrust towards those from 'outside' that exists because of it.

What I am determined not to become again is anyone's stooge, and I respect independent thinkers of all colours as long as they are confident enough to handle others having their own opinion.

There will be a million different views on how to solve the problem, as much as difficulty agreeing what the problem is. As a discussion forum all of this is approprite. What it aint is a recruiting ground for militants (that would be the schools then....:0)).

The more we show that we can listen and argue and discuss with all sorts of people, and where appropriate alter what we believe because we have been convinced by their beliefs - the more we will be a very visible opposite to the ST J governors and the SES, and what we have to say will be more palatable to consider. Nobody can argue the case that the abuse didn't take place now, or that the SES is still involved heavily in the school - a victory.

Now can I have an argument on whether the board of governors are ACTUALLY as sorry as they say they are, or how we can make more prospective parents aware of the inquiry report, or how we can show that this is still going on in a modified way at St J (without waiting years for the abused to realise the abuse took place).

Free and Justice! your postings came on whilst I was typing my last piece ,

Free, what you have described seems to be exactly what Mike Gormez has given us right here -- just think what it would be like to have to try to make contact without either the sterling pioneering work of Andrew Hogg and Peter Hounam with Secret Cult or this forum -- you can thank Mike's initiative in starting this for the existence of the Townend report since they specifically refer to the forum as triggering their enquiry and "damage control" measures . Used properly this site can bring a lot of pieces of a jigsaw together and reveal much of the whole picture -- surely it has already resulted in a huge amount of relief and vindication and the start of healing for those of you who suffered directly and as children.

Keep in mind too that Mike has no "axe to grind" in regard to the SES or scientology but simply felt that after coming across wrongdoing and damaging cults he should ,for moral and ethical reasons, do what he could to try to help right those wrongs.

This is what a civilized human being should do let alone the Christian injunction "do unto others as you would have them do unto you " -- not for "reasons" of your personal gain or 'ownership' of status as a victim or any other excuse. Think about it for a bit.

Justice!s summary of the motivation that he feels seems to be on the money --- the whole edifice of civilization is built on real truth in actions and trying to do the right thing -- with a perfect conscience and no ulterior motives, religions and cults would be out of business -- in the meantime they can easily do more harm than good and it up to those who can to bring some constraint on their worst aspects.

If anyone has taken real offence I apologize for that and believe my intentions will be clear if read slowly and in context.

Ross.

PS Mike -- I realize the errorsafe did not come via this site ;- I made the mistake of hitting the download button and came to the pay by credit card which I do not have and couldn't erase it -- same with some "on line casino' that pops up plus several other unbidden 'reminder' screens...

Dear parent,
It was not my wish to cause you offense. Justice, whose aggressive (I think someone else has called it) qualities warrented it, needed in my view the third degree as you call it although I'm not exactly sure of the origins of this term but can guess it's meaning.. I am quite willing to tone down the few examples of offensive language and replace them. Do you want this?
I agree with your points about the subversive and non transparent ways of St James and the S.E.S.

 You make this point about 'truth'. Well a smokescreen posting like this one by Justice is equally a manipulative gesture. The whole point of this post is to well up parent bad feeling. By playing very loosely indeed with facts Justice has created the impression of a mass exodus. Now if all the parents leave in July, then, a post like this would be telling the truth.Otherwise it is an attempt to create the very reality it is reporting.

 I get the feeling that it is this above perception of mine and written argument that causes your dislike of me more than any of the facts you mention

 Why am I ruining the effect? Because if St James were to become non sexist, transparent and non religion obssessed I would hold none of the teachers, almost all of whom I have at least some affection for, responsible for such a jolly patchy and biased education. My sentiments are largely based on sympathy and feeling. For instance it is probably not known that some of the key targets of this site are very depressed at the moment.

 On the subject of intimidation. Could you make up your mind. By saying one minute I have intimidated you then denying it completely in the next post you give the impression that your grilling by the headmaster or whoever it was, was equally something that may or may not have really intimidated you. It gives the impression that it is more out of anger and a sudden zeal for the 'right' cause that you complain so much about an apparent intimidation.

Lastly on a personal note. I am not a typical St James kid. I stick out from the rest of anyone I actually know in person that comes from my generation of St James like a sore thumb. The people on this site that are active are all ' virtual' to me and it is difficult to judge the degree of their St Jamesyness. St James apart, I am probably the most anti organized religion person I know. I do not feel that to not have a religious centre quite in the way you expect relegates me quite to the position of confusion you hold out as being mine

I think to have views like mine now so strongly and obviously explained must at least seem plausable? There is no spin to my attitude. At all. My defense against the extremes of this site is out of human feelings of attachment and affection for the accused. I think St James deserves a bashing but not quite this much. Is this so implausable an attitude?

Lastly the Catholic Church is guilty of so much more atrocity and immoral action and political manipulativeness including most recently sex abuse that I must say there is no camparison at all between St James and the true Church of God. The Roman Catholic religion in my view is the devil
on earth.

Your affection for those individuals surely allows that they were mistaken in their understanding or teaching of that philosophy, or possibly they too were mislead. Or just possibly that they might not see the best course of action re the inquiry, or resignations, or openness. Given that, does the intransigence and arrogance of the Governors 'face saving' post-inquiry statement not merit some censure?

If they are depressed, they should maybe seek counselling.

I dont think they are quintessentially bad people, but that doesn't mean that they don't have to take responsibility for their past mistakes. And mistakes they were!

Surely it is a sign of the sinister nature of authoritarianism mixed with religious zeal and the presumption of absolute right that good men were misled by it. An enlightening philosophy wouldn't turn a good man into a bully, surely? So how was it that good people were turned into bullies, thinking it was alright, that everyone else was doing it? They had responsibilty for us. They failed in that. They failed to heed the warnings that they were failing consistently. They are lining up to ignore the warnings in the inquiry report.

If they hadn't buried their heads in the sand whilst they were being told again and again that all was not well, from parents, from appointed reporters, from investigative journalists, from the tutors, from students, then maybe this could have been dealt with before in a less public way.

You have to admit, if even you can't risk them knowing who you are and what you really believe, how would they ever have heard a dissenting voice that they valued? Why can't the parents talk about their SES membership openly, why are they so secretive about what they do to prospective parents, why can there not be discussion in the SES about this BB, why can they not post an apology in the one place where they will be sure it is highly visible to the target readers, why would they not publish the private recommendations of Mr Townend? etc etc.

Start with what is in front of you. Write a personal letter to these depressed good people you know. Tell them why you write on the Bulletin Board. Tell them what you think is wrong in your own words. Tell them what you think they did that was right if you like too. But tell them, face to face what you say here.

ross nolan wrote:PS Mike -- I realize the errorsafe did not come via this site ;- I made the mistake of hitting the download button and came to the pay by credit card which I do not have and couldn't erase it -- same with some "on line casino' that pops up plus several other unbidden 'reminder' screens...

I'm not sure what you are implying, Ross, but there are no popups, ads or anything similar on this board. There never have been. If you are seeing ads, download Ad-aware and check your system.

Kier your personal letter idea is good. I think I'll take that up and post it and I'll detail exactly what think about St James and the schools which is certainly not that complimentary. The absense of such a statement probably explains why I seem such a confused and untrustworthy poster. I'll write this letter. It'll take a week bcause I have the purple Maclaren book and others and it'll take some time to compie the quotes. I would like to release a convincing critique on St James, less so on the S.E.S.

Hi I went to St James school and in general I felt the 'pastoral care' to be very good. I always felt highly valued by my teachers with the odd term or two when I got in trouble.

I was caned but have no problems with that. Apart from some severe bullying from older boys which greatly affected my teenage years and life after too in a milder way I was mistreated once when on a Form 2 camp I was made to do squats for half an hour with a sack over my head while teachers drank beer behind me and chatted. My sin? I had failed to tie a black bin bag fully closed even though I had had difficulty with it as it was my first ever black bin bag and the plastic seemed to slip around.

I was also once mercillessly beaten by my father an S.E.S member on the bare behind between 14 and 30 times. It caused multiple bruising and was while a friend of mine was staying. I was between 8 and 10 I think. It was for apparently being rude consistantly for a term to my mums friend who took me home. My dad has severe anger problems that only resulted in this violence once. The time I actually deserved a stiff punishment for some very bold stealing of a teacher's hanbag and purse my father lightly tapped me with a slipper. I was older and he was trying to be like an official headmaster because the theft took place in the holiday.

So two occassions and not much bleed over. I completely don't get on with my dad on account of his extreme right wing views. He listens to speeches of George Bush in the evening sometimes.

I expect that the squats with the sack over my head was the kind of thing that often happened with the older classes so I do have some idea and I remember the sort of hard man ethos that was around in the older classes.

My main problems with St James are it's attitude to women and the blind focus on 'truth' with no leeway given in what is taught. It's no good giving the kids something to disagree with. It shouldn't be about are you good because you believe or bad because you disagree. This just sets up tension between good and bad, ideal and reality. If truth is not focused on but an actual informative education taking in all philosophy and cultural thinking including contemporary issues studied on their own turf not from an S.E.S perspective then a step will be made in the right direction which should have been in place at the beginning of any school's vision. To give a non biased cultural survay. Not a biased right wing Victorian fear screen.

I enjoy meditation and the philosophy of 'the self' ironically. However no attempt is made to link this with psychology's recognition of 'the self' or with similar Western thinkers like Heidegger for one. Then there is the rest of philosophy.

St James breeds happy (?) looking niaves who have the makings of potentially very troublesome idealistic difficulties ahead. What is unforgivable is the segregation of the sexes.

My mother and father seem to me to have one of the closest relationships I've seen so I had a very good example at home which is probably quite unusual but the role playing of the husband being reason and the wife's supposed emotional extremes being always shouted at to pipe down when they cropped up was a bad example. My mother and father are very close but intellectually they are not equals which is something inherant in both characters but just so happens to perfectly illustrate the ideal S.E.S marraige. The love between them however is unusually strong compared to any relationship I've seen in any environment.

So I liked the meditation and the idea of ego vs real self which I find useful to this day but woman are inferior doesn't work for men or women or me and we all knew this but day in day out esp in the S.E.S a sexest attitude can rub off on even the most tolerant and strongly independant persons.

I think St James does hide the extremes of S.E.S belief from parents like the idea that woman should obey men. I also think the arrogance displayed when St James says they introduce parents to Philosophy shows how preposterous it is that they call 'therir philosophy' Philosophy. It's completely self contained.

So there is everything still to change with the presentation of Philosophy and the sexism. Both especially the last are massive issues. These are my feelings

I have been very angry up to recently, my relationship with my father is cliched in it's disfuctionality but with my mother no. Then again in many ways she is very very natural compared to a lot of S.E.S members and is a joy to be with. When I think of her and others I have to defend what I fail to see as robot people so utterly. I can only speak for my mum but she is a very eccentric and individual character.

I went to St James school and in general I felt the 'pastoral care' to be very good

I was mistreated once when on a Form 2 camp I was made to do squats for half an hour with a sack over my head while teachers drank beer behind me and chatted. My sin? I had failed to tie a black bin bag fully closed even though I had had difficulty with it as it was my first ever black bin bag and the plastic seemed to slip around

.

Good God - I would hate to know what 'poor' pastoral care at St James was like.

ross nolan wrote:PS Mike -- I realize the errorsafe did not come via this site ;- I made the mistake of hitting the download button and came to the pay by credit card which I do not have and couldn't erase it -- same with some "on line casino' that pops up plus several other unbidden 'reminder' screens...

I'm not sure what you are implying, Ross, but there are no popups, ads or anything similar on this board. There never have been. If you are seeing ads, download Ad-aware and check your system.

No, Ross is not implying that it came from this site. That is why he answers me because I told him too that Errorsafe didn't originate from this site.